How different Old Glory might have looked. Looking after the flag at a recent rally for Presidential hopeful Mitt Roney. Photograph: Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis/Corbis

You don't get to be one of the largest nations on earth without a few people wanting to leave along the way and the US has seen its fair share of independent republics and secessionist movements. But what if there really had been a Republic of Vandalia, or the wonderfully-named Forgottonia?

Or if South Carolina, scene of the crucial primary this weekend, was an independent state?

What would their GDP be or their literacy rate, life expectancy or teen pregnancy figures? Interestingly, the map also compares them to other actual countries.

So, the Third Palmetto Republic, which calls for the independence of South Carolina would see a country which has a lower voter turnout than the Democratic Republic of Congo (although to be fair, higher than Washington DC); lower adult literacy than Kenya, Libya, Swaziland or Saudi Arabia; and a GDP per head of $32,505 - compared to the UK's $36,099.

Then there's the area of Nicajack - a proposed neutral state in Eastern Tennessee and Northern Alabama during the US Civil War - which now has a lower life expectancy for men than Albania (but just beats Vietnam and Uruguay).

The ideal of any political movement is to gain independence, so we thought further: what if each secessionist movement was its own country, and how would it stack up with other countries across general measures of health, economy, education, environment and more